The Seattle Seahawks have rarely gone through an extended period of not being good but some of their first-round draft choices have been a disaster. In fact, the period of time that Seattle likely was at its worst corresponded with a number of truly atrocious draft picks. Where would Seattle have been had they taken Brett Favre in 1991 instead of who they did?
One player that is not on the following list of first-round busts is linebacker Brian Bosworth. Was Bosworth good? No. Far from it. But Bosworth was taken in the 1987 supplemental draft, otherwise, you can bet he would have made it on this list.
And while we might be looking at the 2022 Seattle draft in 10 years as one of the best in history, we might say the 2021 draft was one of the worst. But this isn’t an article about overall draft classes (that is another article for another day), this is the top five first-round busts in Seahawks history.
Number 5: Seahawks 2019 draft, number 29 overall: L.J. Collier
Collier started all 16 games in 2020 which is shocking when seen in the greater view when he was a healthy scratch in so many games of 2021 and 2022. One might always wonder exactly what happened between Collier and the Seattle coaching staff because faith in his potential production wasn’t just diminished; It seemed completely lost. Maybe Collier wasn’t willing or capable of fitting Seattle’s schemes with his skillset. Or maybe general manager John Schneider and head coach Pete Carroll just completely blew what they thought Collier would be.
It could have been that Schneider and Carroll thought Collier could be the next Michael Bennett. That would be a defensive tackle capable of supplying interior pass rush and versatile enough to line up at defensive end or on the interior. As it turns out, Collier wasn’t truly capable of being good at anything.
The 2019 NFL draft ended up having a lot of busts in the late first and second rounds. Seattle, however, seems to be a part of a few of them. Seattle also chose Marquise Blair in the second round and he is no longer with the team. Drew Lock is but he was a bust for the team that chose him, the Broncos. The issue with trading down and taking Collier at pick 30, besides the fact he isn’t good and has 3 sacks and 6 tackles for loss in four seasons, is Seattle could have had Montez Sweat if not for trading down. Sweat has 29 sacks in his four years so far and 37 tackles for loss.
Number 4: Seahawks 2004 draft, number 23 overall: Marcus Tubbs
Tubbs was hurt (literally) by his lack of ability to play much, especially in the final two seasons of his four-year NFL deal. Seattle took him with the hopes of being able to pressure the quarterback from a defensive tackle position and there was some promise that would happen. But after being taken number 23 overall, he was out of the game completely after 2007.
In Tubbs’ rookie season of 2004, he played in 11 games and had 1 sack, and was in on 13 tackles. Not much production for a first-round choice. In 2005, Tubbs improved some and had 5.5 sacks and 3 tackles for loss while starting 11 games. But after 2005, Tubbs did extremely little.
In 2006, Tubbs played only five games, had half a sack and 1 tackle loss. He started two games. But he hurt his knee after those five games and would never play in the NFL again. He missed all of the 2007 season with the same knee injury and no team wanted to take a chance on signing him as he wasn’t overly good when he did play and there was no guarantee that he would play.
It would be easy to say that Seattle could have drafted a player like DT Darnell Dockett instead. Dockett played for the Cardinals for 10 years and made three Pro Bowls. He had 9 or more quarterback hits every season from 2007 through 2013 and missed two games in his entire career. But Dockett wasn’t taken until the start of the third round so the Seahawks whiffed on him in the second round as well.
Number 3: Seahawks 2000 draft, number 22 overall: Chris McIntosh
Like many rookies who don’t work out, sometimes it isn’t about talent but health. McIntosh, it should be noted, has also gone on to greater things than just playing football. McIntosh is currently the athletic director at the University of Wisconsin and oversees a very successful overall athletic program. Maybe not getting to play a long NFL career helped McIntosh in the long run but it definitely didn’t help the Seahawks.
Seattle wanted to build its offense with early picks in the 2000 draft. With the first choice Seattle had, number 19 overall, the team chose running back Shaun Alexander. He turned out to be pretty good. With number 22 overall, Seattle picked McIntosh and McIntosh was a bust. McIntosh was drafted to be a tackle and did start 10 games as a rookie but he didn’t make it much longer after that.
Before his second season, McIntosh suffered a neck injury which would cause him to be limited to three starts in 2001. Of course, neck injuries are no joke, and it’s better for the human being than the football player to not take any risks. McIntosh rightfully didn’t.
McIntosh never played again after 2001 and wound up playing 24 games in his NFL career with 13 starts. While the Seahawks did have Walter Jones at left tackle in the early 2000s, it would have been interesting to see what a healthy McIntosh would have added on the right side. Again, though, retiring instead of risking further injury was the correct move.
Number 2: Seahawks 1993 draft, number 2 overall: Rick Mirer
Now we get the first of the final two worst first-round draft picks in Seahawks history and the worst two are far ahead of everyone else and set the franchise back several years. Mirer was taken second overall in the 1993 draft just after another quarterback, Drew Bledsoe. Mirer played at Notre Dame and looked a bit like Joe Montana so maybe the hope is that Mirer would come to the Seahawks and do for Seattle what Montana did for San Francisco. That didn’t work out.
He wasn’t completely awful in his rookie year but he wasn’t good either. His second year showed a bit more promise as he actually led the NFL in lowest interception percentage at 1.8. In Mirer’s third season, the team went 7-6 in his starts. But by Mirer’s fourth season and his last with Seattle, he was terrible as the team went 2-7 in his starts and he threw 5 touchdown passes versus 12 interceptions.
One of the issues with Mirer is that the team sometimes won in spite of him. His touchdown-to-interception ratio was horrendous as he threw 41 touchdown passes for Seattle but also had 56 interceptions. The team went 20-31 in his starts. While Seattle did need a quarterback, they also had other needs and the 1993 class of quarterbacks was not good. After Bledsoe and Mirer, the next quarterback chosen wasn’t until round three.
Mirer does have good taste, though. After leaving the NFL for good after the 2003 season, Mirer has had a successful career as a wine entrepreneur. He’s better at that than he was as an NFL quarterback.
Number 1: Seahawks 1991 draft, number 16 overall: Dan McGwire
So now for one of the worst first-round picks not only in Seahawks history but likely NFL history, especially as far as quarterbacks go. Rarely has anyone been given up on so quickly. McGwire was drafted in 1991 (mind you, this is just two years ahead of Mirer) and the hope was that he would take over for starter Dave Krieg by season two. Instead, McGwire was so horribly bad during the preseason prior to his second season that not only did the Seahawks pass on him being the starter, he actually was moved to third-string.
Part of the issue was that McGwire was too tall to be a good NFL quarterback. He was 6’8″ and a quarterback that tall takes longer to wind up to throw and most don’t have any ability to escape a pass rush. McGwire had decent arm strength, but no accuracy. In five career starts for Seattle, McGwire was sacked 20 times. And he completed just 74 of 147 passes with 2 touchdowns and 6 interceptions.
One issue that the McGwire legacy involves, and that isn’t McGwire’s fault really, is that he was taken 16th overall and Seattle could have – likely should have – chosen the guy who was taken number 33 overall in the 1991 draft. That player was named Brett Favre and he ended up having a pretty good career. Just imagine what Seattle could have been in the early 2000s with Favre as the quarterback.